Canada’s luge doubles’ each slide to 10th as women make Olympic debut
Beattie Podulsky and Kailey Allan were, no matter the result, making history as the first pair to race in luge women’s doubles for Team Canada.
So it was extra special for the duo, both from Calgary, Alta., to crack the top 10 in the inaugural women’s doubles event hosted in Milano Cortina on Wednesday.
Podulsky and Allan raced to a time of 55.735 seconds in their first run, but a costly mistake at the top of the track slowed their time.
In their second run, they posted 53.747 seconds – the fifth fastest of all competitors, and just over half-a-second off of the lead time.
They ended the day in 10th place, with a total time of 1:49.482 seconds.
“We had a massive mistake that really cost us the whole race, and it’s obviously not how you want to start your Olympic career,” Podulsky said. “But there are many more races to come, and we’re ready to throw it down more than we did today.”
The pair from Alberta had only a little over a year to train together after pairing up ahead of the 2024-25 season.
They capped off that year with a bronze medal as part of Canada’s relay team at the 2025 FIL World Championships in Whistler.
Then to kick off the 2025-26 season, they had their best career World Cup result, a fifth place finish, in Winterberg, Germany.
“We’re here hopefully to be an inspiration to younger girls in the sport,” Podulsky said. “So it’s awesome to do that, and it’s awesome to be here with this crowd and just make it here.”
Italy’s Andrea Voetter and Marion Oberhofer became the first-ever Olympic champions in women’s doubles, clocking-in at 1:46.284.
Germany’s Dajana Eitberger and Magdalena Matschina claimed silver, while Austria’s Selina Egle and Lara Michaela Kipp slid to bronze.
When it came time for the men to take to the track, Canada’s men’s pair of Cole Zajanski and Devin Wardrope posted an identical result to the women, finishing in 10th place, with a time of 1:45.906.
After narrowly missing out on qualifying for Beijing 2022, Zajanski and Wardrope were poised for an impactful result.
“It’s amazing,” said Wardrope. “Being able to put down two of our better, if not best, runs of training and just sort of utilizing the skills that we got from training… learning the track and putting down what we can.”
The pair ran a time of 52.996 seconds in their first run, and 52.910 in their second.
The longtime partners have been racing together internationally since 2019-20.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s so crazy to think about – looking even a month and a half from today, we had no idea that we would be here,” said Wardrope.
“We had no idea that we would even be able to compete the rest of the season. So we’ve come such a long way in such a short amount of time, and I just can’t be more grateful for it.”
In the men’s doubles, gold went to Italy’s Emanuel Rieder and Simon Kainzwaldner as the home team swept the doubles events. Austria’s Thomas Steu and Wolfgang Kindl took silver, while Germany’s Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt took bronze.
The final remaining luge event in this Olympic Games will be team relay, taking place Thursday. Canada did not qualify for the nine-team field.